Olympia Power & Light, Dec. 16-29, 2009. The school building shown on OP&L's webpage is the recent incarnation of Roosevelt. I have yet to find an online image of the Roosevelt I attended.
When the school celebrated it's centennial a few years ago, a nice history was assembled, including this bit:
Over the years, Roosevelt School has had a number of building additions to make room for its expanding student population. In 1949 Roosevelt received the first new elementary school building in Olympia's modernization program. The new school was made out of brick and had one floor with no steps or ramps. The classrooms were painted pastel shades to give "a cheerful and homelike atmosphere". The district boasted that it was the safest type of building being planned. Families rapidly built houses in the neighborhood so they could send their children to the new school. Roosevelt's student population increased 32% between 1948 and 1949. When the new school opened in 1949 there were 395 students enrolled. Although the school had the most modern facilities, it lacked a public address system. Roosevelt's innovative principal Wilfred Reeves would go down the hall on roller skates to notify teachers or students when they had a phone call. Luckily the PTA was able to raise sufficient funds to install a public address system. Forty years later in 1989, Roosevelt opened another new school using a special floor plan where grades were clustered into three pods; one for kindergarten and first grade, one for second and third grade, and one for fourth and fifth grade.
I bolded the roller skate part. That sentence not only demonstrates how long the halls were, but also Mr. Reeves' playfulness. Of course, when I remember the principal he was quite old and finishing his career, but I can easily imagine him skating down the hall in his younger years.
A real-life, official Roosevelt School beanie!
